The northern part of the forest fell to Hugo's share, and was subdivided by him between his chief retainers. Every nook was to be investigated, and signals were arranged whereby all the hunters could be assembled together in case of need.
The work was a very arduous one, for the portion assigned to the retainers of Aescendune alone, occupied a circuit of some fifteen miles, bounded on the east by a stream which ran into the Avon, on the north by a well-defined range of wooded hills.
This was the most important section of all, for what faint indications had been gained of the whereabouts of the foe, all pointed in this direction.
The men-at-arms were divided into five distinct bands, lightly armed, because of the distance they had to travel, and Etienne claimed and obtained the command of one party.
However, the baron, while he had no doubt of his son's valour, grievously doubted his discretion, and added to the party Ralph, his chief forester, strictly charging Etienne in any difficulty to be guided by his advice--directions which the young heir received with a toss of the head, which spoke volumes for his submission.
They entered the forest--a gallant array, each party numbering about twenty, and there were nearly twenty of such bands; but when they divided and again subdivided, and each took their different routes, they appeared lost in the vastness of the forest, and in a very few minutes every band was so isolated that they heard no sounds indicating that any save themselves were in the wood.
We will leave all other parties to their fate, and confine our attention to that commanded by Etienne, which, indeed, was destined to surpass all the others in the results accomplished, and in their influence on the future destinies of all the personages in our history.
They proceeded fully five miles from home before their real task began. Perhaps the reader will wonder how they could know their own destined region in so pathless a wilderness, but it was part of the training they had received as hunters to find their way in the lonely woods; and there were signs innumerable which told them where they were, and in what direction they were going. Etienne alone, could guide his men while day lasted, as well as a pilot could steer a ship in a well-known archipelago, and in Ralph he had a tower of strength.
Every landmark was known--the course of every stream; each tree, by the direction in which it threw its boughs and by the mosses at the foot of its trunk, told the points of the compass.
Yet there were probably, in so large an extent of country, many wild glens and deep fastnesses hitherto untraversed, and these had to be discovered and explored.